an interview with better sign shop

A while back I was interviewed by my good friend Bryant Gillespie over at bettersignshop.com. If you don’t know Bryant, you should. He’s kind of like the Yoda of sign shop web marketing development and automation. His firm works with shops large and small, helping them dial in their web presence to attract more business, and systemize and automate what goes on behind the scenes. I can’t stress this enough: the. dude. knows. his. stuff. His site is a treasure trove of business management knowledge - I highly suggest you check it out:

Bryant and I had a really fun chat about electrical sign design and I thought I’d share some excerpts from it here:

Bryant: What are major differences between designing the normal vinyl sign shop stuff vs designing for illuminated signage? For a guy who's spent most of his life designing logos, brands, marketing collateral, flat signage, etc - what would be the most important things to know?

Michael: That's a tough one...

In a lot of ways the same basic principals of good design apply (or should apply) no matter what your designing, be it a logo or a giant pylon sign or a vehicle wrap.

At the end of the day if it's not a good design, no matter what it is, it won't be doing its job, so that's first and foremost.

But just like with any specific design niche there are some nitty gritty details you have to really understand.

People designing for print typically have a really good understanding of the printing processes, papers, inks, etc.

If you're designing for flat signage, you probably have an understanding of what materials you're working with, how it'll be hung, etc.

For electrical signs, the same applies. You have to think about it from the perspective of how it'll be built and what materials will be used, and design around those constraints. In most situations, fabrication capabilities, specific material limitations or installation obstacles will drive the scope of the project.

In addition, most electrical signs are really “light” construction projects (some are major construction projects). Having a working understanding of construction basics, installation and fabrication methods, electrical code requirements, and some of the basic structural engineering principals at play with signage ensures that your designs look good, but can be practically built and installed.

So I guess it’s a big balancing act — on one hand you're designing something to look nice, but on the other hand you’re never losing sight of the fact that it has to be buildable and installable and permittable and servicable. You're thinking it through from a lot of angles and wearing a lot of hats.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put more than a few hours into a beautiful sign, only to realize late in the game that I didn’t take into consideration something as critical and obvious as a way to service the sign in the field, or clearance to phisically crane the sign into place during installation, which sent me back to square one.

Bryant: I’m sure you've seen your fair share of "graphic designers" trying to design electrical signage. What are some of the most common mistakes you've seen rookies make?

Michael: Oh yeah for sure, it's everywhere. And it's to be expected, there's no really good resource out there to learn this stuff, which is unfortunate.

Usually the designers that are new to it don't fully understand the limitations of fabrication and installation, so they design things that aren't practical to manufacture.

And then you have to decipher what they were trying to achieve and work backwards to figure out how to build that and then make the design still work on top of it. Often times the final result is only a glimmer of the original intent — an unfortunate predicament that is avoidable.

Other common mistakes I see regularly include making strokes on channel letters too small so LEDs won't fit, making channel letter or cabinet depths to shallow which leads to hotspots, designing for the wrong materials for the job, etc.. It runs the gamut really, I’ve seen it all.

Bryant: What does your process for designing illuminated signage look like at a high level? Where are you getting started? How does it flow? What tools are you using?

Michael: For us, our clients are other sign professionals, so generally they come to us armed with detailed site surveys with dimensions, notes, photos, etc., local zoning regulations for sign size, type, illumination, etc., and at least a rough idea of what their customer wants plus a rough sketch. Often there's already existing branding guidelines to work within.

From there it starts like most other design projects. Once we have a good understanding of the scope of the work, we start moving basic shapes around to nail down the overall proportions, and then slowly start adding in more info/detail etc. until it's a fully fleshed out drawing, always being conscious of size and fabrication restrictions we need to work within.

As far as tools, we use whatever we need to. We mostly use CorelDraw anymore, which sort of pains me to say... I used to be a die-hard Adobe fanboy, but the reality is Corel is a stout program and it's better equipped for this type of design work. In a lot of ways if behaves more like a CAD program than a ""design"" program, which lends itself to this work. We use SketchUp for 3D renderings.

That said, when I do need a “design” program, I personally switch to Adobe. The interface and tools IMO are just smoother and easier to use. I find Corel's vector drawing tools and text tools somewhat cumbersome, so anything that needs line work or a lot of text manipulation is done in Illustrator and then brought into Corel. The two play together very nicely surprisingly.

We rely pretty heavily on Photoshop for any photo mainpulation, night-time renderings with lighting effects, etc. One thing I’m a stickler for is the quality of photos if we’re doing any photo mockups. I think it’s important to go the extra mile and square those images up, drop in a pretty looking sky, fix bad lighting, airbrush out obstructions, etc.. These drawings are sales tools for our clients, so the better the present the proposed signage, the more money we all make. Those details matter.

Bryant: Are there any plugins or add-ons you're using for CorelDraw or Illustrator to speed up your design workflow?

Michael: In Corel, no. I have templated as much as possible for efficiency. I've cataloged all of the common section details, hardware, etc so I can just drop it into drawings. Libraries of material fills, color palettes for paints and vinyls, etc..

In Illustrator, weuse CadTools plugin which I personally don’t care much for versus the native dimensioning tools in CorelDraw, but is a necessary evil.

And I have title block template files set up for all of our clients, already dialed in to their look, with all of the components we need so we don't have to hunt for stuff for hours.

Otherwise the workflow/toolset is fairly basic. No crazy plugins or magic.

Bryant: For a shop that has mostly done vinyl signage and printing, but wants to get into larger illuminated / fabricated projects, what's the best way for them to get started in that arena?

Michael: It's not something I really recommend they jump into blindly (like I sort of did back in the day)... There's a lot to know and a lot of liability in it. You're no longer talking about screwing a sheet of Dibond to a wall. Electrical signs are a different ballgame — they can be very expensive, and when things go wrong with them, buildings can burn to the ground and people can (and often do) get hurt.

But they shouldn't be scared of it, they just need to research it and understand what they're getting into so they can speak intelligently about it to their customers and vendors and sell a better product.

And they should expect to outsource everything - including design - for a while. I'm not saying that to plug my business here, but as I mentioned above on that other question, there's a lot to know, and an inexperienced designer will make every mistake in the book, which can cost the company big. Partner with vendors who are invested in your success and who will give you honest feedback and direction.

So learn the product, learn the zoning regulations, learn what it'll take to get it manufactured and installed, and partner with good vendors with the experience to handle the design/specifications, permit drawings, manufacturing, installation, etc.. Do it right from the start, grow into it slowly, and don’t cut corners.